bey

[…]

/[…]/ prep

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“bey” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #18,840) as a preposition. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#18,840
frequency rank, German
5,818
“B” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - bei

Corpus desk

Index DE-bey · bey · German

bey · rank #18,840 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #18,840
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,818
  • PHOTO-FINISH bewundere

Nearest frequency peer: bewundere (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Häufigkeitsnachbarn des Verwechslers „bey“

Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten

corpus weight

What this shows Balken platzieren „bey“ gegen die nächsten gerankten deutschen Lemmata, kein Reprint der Verwechslungsdesk.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

bey vs by
67% similar
bey vs Br
0% similar
bey vs Bi
0% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for bey
PropertyValue
Headwordbey
LanguageGerman
Part of speechPreposition
IPA[…]
Letters3
Frequency rank#18,840
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „bey“

Diese Skala geht vom Kern des Alltagdeutschen (links) bis zum seltenen Langschwanz (rechts).beyliegt auf dieser Marke:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Die Achse ist logarithmisch: jeder Tick markiert etwa zehnfach geringere Häufigkeit. Peers derselben Seltenheitsbandbreite: „bewundere“ (#18,839), „Bibi“ (#18,841), „betraut“ (#18,838). Unter 5,818 „B“-Lemmata liegt „bey“ bei #18,840. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for bey is neighbouring look-alikes ("by", "Br", …), not just typos; it is apreposition pronounced […]. Frequency #18,840 among 5,818 “B” headwords. Gloss: "bei".

bey doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "by", "Br", "Bi", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct German form is bey, spelled B-E-Y.

Definition

  1. 1
    bei

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how bey appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. „Sie namen jn aber bey der hand, vnd fuereten jn gen Damascum,“
  2. „es hat ein scharffstarck Horn vorn auff der Nassen / das begundt es zu wetzen wo es bey staynen ist“

This word in other languages

by(English)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "bey"?
"bey" is spelled B-E-Y. The IPA pronunciation is […].
What does "bey" mean?
As a preposition, "bey" means: bei
What words are commonly confused with "bey"?
"bey" is commonly confused with "by", "Br", "Bi". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "bey"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "bey" is […]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "bey" come from?
"bey" is a German word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar German words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "bey", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked German headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

AUX#18,814FAQ#18,882ala#18,792öde#18,776

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list